20 Simple Tools Your Small Business Needs Now

May 13, 2016

9:45 am

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Running your own business is no simple task. From hiring and payroll to other day-to-day operations, there are a million different responsibilities needing your attention throughout the work week. With a few of these tools, you can make your business run more efficiently and in turn, take the stress off of your shoulders.

Evernote

Whether it is for a major project, or working on a to-do list, inspiration can strike at any time. And if you are away from work, you need to be able to make it available to yourself at work. With Evernote, you can capture an important note and access across all of your devices, no matter where you are. From text, documents and images, Evernote can help you access your information anytime.

Boomerang

Email marketing is one of the most important aspects of your business, and sending an email at the right time is essential to success. But what if you are unable to send the email yourself at the most opportune time? With Boomerang, you can write up the perfect email and schedule it to be sent out at the exact time you need it to without any problems.

InvoiceHome

When you make a sale with your clients, the next step in the process is making a detailed outline of the charges and payment for both the client and yourself. This is crucial for both your finance management and putting on a professional front. At InvoiceHome, you can find over 100 top of the line, intuitive, fully customizable invoice templates to send to your clients.

Streak

Tired of bouncing back and forth between your email and your external customer relationship management (CRM) docs? With Streak, this app integrates all of these important documents right into your Gmail, and color codes and organizes everything for easy access and simplicity. It’s also trusted by major brands such as Uber and Yelp, you can’t go wrong.

Skype

Internal communication is arguably one of the most important keys to a successful business. But what if it doesn’t make sense logistically and kills efficiency to have to go talk in person every time you have a question, suggestion, or concern? Skype not only provides excellent conference call abilities, but the simple and efficient chat feature allows you to communicate with everyone both individually, as well as collaborate in groups.

Hootsuite

A successful social media management strategy is essential to 21st-century business success. While interaction is key, providing your audience with content is arguably just as important. With Hootsuite, you can schedule your quality evergreen content across multiple platforms and send out your posts at any time you desire.

Gmail

Gmail is so much more than email, which is why is such a valuable tool for your business and frankly, a must have. Along with an easy to use email platform,the Gmail setup also provides you with high-quality templates for word docs, spreadsheets, presentation slides, and more. All of which can be accessed from your different devices and shared easily with others.

Canva

Studies have shown your audience reacts far more positively when your posts involve attractive photos and graphics. But what if you aren’t very artistic, or lack quality graphic design skills? With Canva, you can easily create world-class level infographics, memes, and much more with just a few clicks. Complete with an easy-to-use iPad app, you can take this tool with you wherever you go.

Google Analytics

If you want your business to continue to grow steadily, you need to see where you are being successful and where you can improve. With Google Analytics, you can track every aspect of your website’s visitors. From the amount of visits from social media to the amount of time the visitor spent on each page, find out what you can do to keep them longer and make the sale.

WordPress

It is no secret that one of the major keys to a successful business today is a consistent, quality blog. A fantastic tool such as WordPress provides you with a plethora of clean, attractive blog themes so you can set up your site in a way that is appealing to your visitors and keep them coming back for more.

Toggl

Do you find yourself struggling to stay on task, or are wondering how efficient you are at utilizing the time you are at work and actually working? Toggl provides a one of a kind time tracking software that tracks the amount of time you are on each web page you visit each day, so you can see where you can improve and become an even better worker.

Dropbox

If you work in a collaborative space, the sharing of files may be crucial to working successfully and efficiently. With Dropbox, you can easily share your documents, images, videos, audio files and more with ease with your co-workers and employers. With the ability to access it across all of your devices, you can always be connected with your important information.

MailChimp

Email marketing is one of the most important aspects of your business to successfully reach new leads and communicate with current customers. With so many emails to send, however, this can be an incredibly time-consuming task. With MailChimp, you can easily create customized templates for your company, and easily sends hundreds of thousands of personalized emails and keep track of your tailored campaigns, automate follow-ups, and much more.

Todoist

Whether it’s a normal day, or you are meeting a project deadline, you have tasks you need to accomplish each day. With Todoist, you can easily make a checklist of the tasks you need to accomplish and stay on top of your workload more efficiently.

Insightly

When it comes to running a company, your CRM is key to your likeability and success. With Insightly, you can easily manage all of your contacts, partners, vendors, suppliers and more, as well as easily stay on top of your upcoming projects and access all of this crucial information across all your devices.

Basecamp

Do you work in a collaborative environment? Do you find it difficult to get on the same page as everyone else on your team at times? Basecamp offers a simple, multi-device compatible software that provides you with message boards and comment threads, as real-time chats, check-ins, and to-do list so you can assure everyone is on the same page at all times.

Trello

Are you tired of going back and for between documents and spreadsheet after spreadsheet when working on a big project or your to-do list? Trello is a one of a kind project management app that brings all of your tools together, along with your fellow collaborators, to help you navigate your way through each task and organize them in a way that helps you accomplish everything quicker and more efficiently.

HelloSign

No matter what business you are running, there is a good chance paperwork has to be signed every now and again, sometimes quite frequently. But what if you need a signature as soon as possible, and there is no way to get it in person in time? HelloSign provides you with a software to easily scan and share important legal documents with whoever you need to and allows them to sign the document electronically so your business can keep running as smoothly as possible.

Feedly

While your social media feed may be full of your own spectacular, original content, your audience doesn’t only want to read what you have to offer on your site. Feedly helps you find relevant, curated content from the top sites on the web so you can build up your library of evergreen content and create one of the most sought after newsfeeds around.

LastPass

Are you one of the many people who plays it safe and utilizes multiple passwords for various sites and tools? While this is a smart strategy, it can be very difficult to remember which password belongs where before you are having to change it constantly. LastPass provides you with a secure, encrypted online vault to help store all of your passwords so you can work more efficiently.